At the same time, we welcome six UW graduate students who will be stepping in as new Antenna editors over the next few months – Evan Elkins, Kit Hughes, Myles McNutt, Nora Seitz, Jennifer Smith, and Adrian Sullivan. Here, a few words from each of them about their current interests.

Evan Elkins:
I anticipate eagerly the latest expansion of the Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant/Karl Pilkington empire, Sky1’s An Idiot Abroad. Since my research interests include comedy’s relationship to global media systems, nationhood/nationality, and transnational reception, I hope this travelogue comedy proves to be both hilarious and illuminating.

Kit Hughes:
An avid viewer of Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, I’m looking forward to the latest addition to the series, Top Chef Just Desserts. I’ll be watching to see how chefs and judges critique and discuss sweet treats and tartes tatin, which meant certain failure in other iterations of TC.

Myles McNutt:
While I’m looking forward to the new fall season, I’ll admit that I remain a wee bit obsessed with the flawed genius of Bravo’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist and the surprising depth of ABC Family’s Huge.

Nora Seitz:
I am curious to see the reception of the new NBC comedy Outsourced. Initially excited by reports of this new show and its unique potential as a site of recession-era/globalization satire, I am slightly dubious because the show’s trailers invite spectators to revel in the tired and age old East-meets-West racialized “otherness” tropes.

Jennifer Smith:
I haven’t always been a fan of Brian K. Vaughan’s self-contained comic book series Ex Machina, but since its final issue hit stands last month I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. When the final volume of the collected edition is released in November, I look forward to seeing the broader critical reaction to the conclusion of a comic that has always thought deeply about the intersection of real-world politics and superhero-based science fiction, as well as the perils of 9/11 representation and the meaning of tragedy in fiction.

Adrian Sullivan:
Zombies! The Walking Dead is a show that might actually drag me out of the land of DVDs and back to broadcast TV. AMC has decided to run with the award-winning Image Comic, and “do for zombies what Mad Men did for advertising”. With Frank Darabont at the helm, great source material, a serious tone (BSG by way of Romero), and AMC fully behind it, I don’t know if it will be possible for me to wait for DVD on this one.